Page 18 of Hidden Depths

He passed the screaming child, who was now growling as he squirmed on the ground. Tom gave the mom a sympathetic wince as she smiled apologetically at all the onlookers.

He’d thought about maybe having kids one day, but that was somewhere in the distant future. For now, all he had to worry about was a few handyman jobs for Armstrong, and then, he’d decided, he’d enjoy himself. He was a hard worker, and he deserved some R and R now and then. Then he remembered Conners and frowned.

Armstrong had been wrong about why Tom was acting out at work, driving himself and putting himself in danger. He didn’t feel guilty about Vic’s death. At least not in the way his boss thought. There had been nothing he could have done to save his partner, but there should have been. He would have given his life for Vic’s. More than anything, Tom wished he was the one who had died. Not the other way around.

He had known Vic for close to a decade, the only close Christian friend Tom had. It wasn’t that he didn’t have other friends with faith. He’d met plenty of people at his church, but no one that understood the pressures of working in the job he did. It wasn’t a job that always brought in those with religious conviction. But Vic had been a light for him. Where Tom always struggled with his faith, Vic had never wavered. No matter what happened, he had trusted in God. Always.

Tom had come to rely on that in times of crisis. In this job, he’d seen stuff most couldn’t imagine, but through it all, Vic had helped him to hold on and gave him the wisdom to approach work from the right perspective.

Then came their last job together, when everything went wrong.

“Sir?” A security guard was standing in front of him. “Are you lost?”

He looked at the guard and pursed his lips. “No.”

“Then perhaps you’d be more comfortable standing closer to the wall, out of the way of the foot traffic?”

Tom looked around and realized he’d stopped in the middle of a crowd, all trying to get to their gate in a hurry so they could wait.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I was lost in thought. I’ll keep moving.” He nodded to the guard and allowed himself to be caught up in the hustle.

When he arrived at his gate, it was full. He’d have to climb over luggage and feet in order to reach a spot against the wall where he could sit until boarding. Apparently, all this cold rain meant the entire state was migrating to the south.

He wasn’t a fan of crowds like this all pressed together with no one looking at each other and hoped he’d be able to find a nice, secluded spot on a beach somewhere once he arrived.

“Excuse me. Sorry.” He stepped on someone’s foot before he could finally settle himself. Then, he put on his headphones and selected Rachmaninoff’s Symphony no. 2 to drown out the sounds around him while he waited to board.

The orchestra took him away, detaching him from his stress as the music flooded his mind, cutting off the distraction of the outside world.

He folded his hands in his lap and leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes as the intensity of the song rose. But the image that met him there was Conners’ confident stare. Perhaps he shouldn’t have chosen a song with a melancholic tone. But he refused to give in. He faced his friend and the look he’d given Tom right before he’d sacrificed himself. It was the same look, Tom now realized, that Vic had given him when they’d first headed off on the mission. Maybe his partner had known what was coming.

He could remember taking cover behind the dumpster with no way out. Before Vic had indicated what he was going to do, Tom had already known and had shaken his head vehemently, as though he could persuade Vic to stop by sheer will. He would have shouted at him to wait if it wouldn’t have compromised their position. There had to be another way.

The biggest mistake Tom had made that night was believing that his friend would follow his orders to wait. If he had known Vic would make the move anyway, he would have acted first. He should have been the one to make the sacrifice. Vic had always been not just a better agent but a better man. He should be the one taking a vacation in the Florida Keys, not Tom.

Squeezing the bridge of his nose, he tried to stave off the tightness there. He hadn’t gone to Harrison because he wanted to die. He’d gone because it didn’t matter if he did or not. He shouldn’t still be alive, so what difference did it make if the deed that should have been done before happened now?

The music moved into a sweeping, passionate build, and Tom hid his face in his arms to hide the tears he couldn’t stop from forming. He wiped them away on the sleeve of his shirt before they could fall, but he couldn’t brush away the pain.

* * *

Sara walked into the hot sun, lightheaded. An expansive smile sat comfortably on her face. She’d never felt lighter. Even in her carefree years, when she’d had the rest of her life before her and everything to live for, she’d never felt like this. Life was never this sweet.

Margaret rubbed a hand on Sara’s back as her husband came up beside them and put a comfortable arm around his wife.

“What a great morning,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

“This has been the best moment of my year,” Margaret said.

“I didn’t know my sermon was so lifechanging. In fact, were you even in the service this morning?”

“Nope.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And that made it the best moment of your year?”

She bumped him with her hip. “We have a new family member. And while I’m sure your message was great, Franklin, we missed it because Sara was set free this morning.”

“I knew something was up with you two. Sara, that’s fantastic. You do look different.”

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